I Think I've Got a Thing About Graffiti

London town

This is a bit of a different video for me, I took a walk from leicester sqaure to oxford street, taking pictures of people on the way and figured all the photos kind of made a journey, so I decided to put them together into what could basically be called a slideshow but I like to think of it as more of a connection between my portrait and stop motion video projects.

One more thing....

I havent posted a video for a couple of days, this one is a bit long but its supposed to show the lengthy process involved in making a cup of tea. It's my favourite video, I shot from different angles, theres a lovely section in the middle involving steam and it holds my attention. I can't think of any music to soundtrack it, I think it does need music to hold your attention but I haven't quite figured that out yet.

So what do I need that for again??

It took a lot of effort but finally I've been given an iphone, it seemed like it was going to be a lot easier than it was to sort out but at last I have managed to get it sorted and it should be in my hands on monday. Shame I've got to wait over the weekend, but its better than not having one.

It seems like everyone's gone a bit mental over the ludicrously named iPad, including me to begin with, I am a self confessed apple nerd and when I first saw the pictures come up of the iPad from the keynote I must admit I was excited, when I saw the price I was even more excited. It's a lot more affordable than I imagined, but really, what is it for?

Sadly It seems that's the question on everyone's lips, I have an imac for home use, Macbook for out and about when I need it and Im soon to have an iphone which i can use as a mini-computer on a day to day basis. At what point am I going to think, I need something else in my bag, I don't even want to have to carry a bag, that's why I want a powerful phone. At what point do I need a semi functional extra gadget, I have an iphone which does my media, phone and day to day tasking needs, I have 2 computers for the heavy work. When do I go, oh actually I want an inbetween point which doesn't do the same as either particually well, the only thing that looks intresting is the ebook use, but I would prefer to have a book in my hands, then again I adore CD's but my i couldn't live without some form of ipod.

Ok I'm rambling, but the point is, I don't see the point. If it could multitask and act more like a touch screen macbook rather than an overgrown ipod touch then I would be drooling over the prospect of spending even more student loan, but I'm not as fussed as I thought I would be.

http://www.apple.com/ipad/#video  It do want to have a go on it though.

the day that was yesterday

So, the day that was yesterday. Started out pretty hunky dory to be honest, went into central, looked around brick lane/ spitalfields and took some really cracking photos. Not a lot in quantity but some really great shots. I thought I would have a day away from stop frame photography/video and it seemed to be working well. I had took some great urban shots so I decided to go to a more natural part of london, I live in Kingston so I thought Richmond Park would be a great idea, not too far away and supposedly a very nice park (twice the size of central park??)  I didn't think about quite how long it would take me to travel there, from liverpool street it took me roughly an hour to get there. Not cool, but even worse, you would imagine to someone who hasn't been to Richmond before it would be clearly signposted as Its a very high acclaimed park,  no....It really isnt. After getting lost for another at least 45 minutes, the night was drawing to a close (damn winter!!) and I really couldn't muster a good photograph. Only good point of the latter half of my day is I found a bus to kingston more or less as soon as I got out of the dark scary looking park.

Anyway rant over, here's some more photos.

What A Crappy Day

I will post why it was such a crappy day tommorow. 

Charity Shop's

Pretty successful day going round charity shops today, I picked up Does It Offend You, Yeah?'s album and the Che Guevara 'A Revolutionary Life' book, both for £1.50! (the book is massive and usually costs 16 quid!!) but sadly missed out on two cool looking photography books when going to get cash. I've learnt my lesson, always get cash beforehand when charity shopping... In oxfam I purcashed the seminal Smashing Pumpkins album 'Melon Collie and the Infinte Sadness' for £2.50 and a £6 pair of grey levi jeans, which are a little tight on me but are ok. Only problem being I found a pair of hands worth of fingernails in the back pocket!  Seriously wtf!?!....not cool. Might have to wash them before I wear them...


In oxfam I also saw a 8mm Cine camera, which I really liked the look of but was £45, we all no oxfam overcharges so I went on ebay and like magic I got a very similar Bell & Howell 624EE 8mm Cine Camera, for the grand price of £1.99 (not including postage) so overall I got myself a bit of a bargain there. I have no idea how to use a 8mm camera but from looking it up on google and youtube I think that it will be intresting to experiment with, even if I cant find any film, it looks cool and is a nice little collectors item.

As always, I like to put a piece of work up every day so today is no exception. Quite a simple little video   today from hyde park a couple of weeks ago in the snow. I wanted to create a bit more movement in my work as a majority of my pieces are from a stationary angle so I felt this was a good experiment. It carries a different look to my other work and the fact it isn't stationary does change the perception a little bit but once again its all stop motion.

Steam

It's a sunday, so i've gone for a slow video for the day of peace and quiet, this video was made simply from pointing my camera at the window in my room, my window steams up when I have a shower so I tried to capture the steam slowly going. Theres a great inconsistency at the start when I open up the window, but I like that I left it in. I like this video due to I feel it has a carming effect but at the same time, its very long and not a lot happens for a lot of the video. I think it may be a piece which I can use as a background part to a piece of work as it may not hold its own, even so, its another time lapse/ stop-motion video and so it a further devolopment in my work.

Also of mention the first song from daft punk's soundtrack to Tron 2.0 has leaked and I think its bloody fantastic, I cant quite put on my finger on what makes the simple song so great but it's slowly becoming one of my favourite songs.

Iphone's and Socks

Today I ordered my iphone from work, been thinking about getting one for a long time and since I work for orange I get a ridiculously good price for it. I also bought 10 pairs of socks, not for the iphone, just because I have not got one pair of socks without a hole in them. Before the inevitable happens and my iphone (which I will receive in the week) puts me off work for a week or so I thought I would carry on sharing my stop frame video's on here. 

Todays's video is quite a short one, filmed in quite a substancially less frames than a lot of previous videos, I used my camera and tripod to capture ducks swimming in the only non frozen part of the lake in hyde park. I also recorded the noise from the ducks on my phone, it doesn't quite capture how noisy they were, clearly all having to be in one confined space wasn't going down that well. Its the first time I have brought recorded sounds into the video, like when I added music it gives it another depth and it makes the series of photos more like a video. 

Loose Change

Another day and another piece of my stop motion work. I decided to make more of an animation for this one, so I took it frame by frame rather than with a constant shutter release, I used my bed side table with my lamp and my wallet and the coins in it as characters and in such this is the first video which has some sort of narrative, simple as it may be.

I've used the video as much more of a way too show a technique and to learn how to make more complex animations. I simply used blue tack to prop up the coins, open the wallet, etc... But I did find issues with keeping things in the same positions and there is certainly inconsistencies, which I actually like because it makes it seem a bit more real, but obviously I would like to create something flawless. The main inconsistency is the fact that the clock is on in the background, which obviously jumps through time whilst im making the work, but I kind of like that...

Snowman - More Stop Motion

So, Im going to try and post a piece of work a day to get the ball rolling on this blog. Today's piece was created last wednesday after another downpour of snow. Rather than letting the snow go to waste I used the opportunity to create work and of course, build a snowman. Myself, Charlie, Hannah and Sam made this snowman in around 15 minutes which turned out to be around 4 and a half minutes of photos. I've gotta say, im pretty proud of us, thats a pretty beasty snowman! The video does suddenly cut out when I think my camera got to cold to carry on taking pictures, but luckily it was pretty close to the end so you cant see much of a difference. This also marked the period of these works when I started adding music as I feel it adds so much more to the videos themselves, you can completely change the pace just by changing the soundtrack.

Stop Motion

My motivation at the moment lies within stop motion videos, I like to work by finding a method and then wrapping a concept around that. I have found this is what gets me most interested and gets me the best results. I have previously worked within trying to make motion within a still image* and that set me up to do the opposite and work with still images to make motion, Its been tried and tested but I hope I can find a new adventurous way in which to use it.



My first video is of a self smoking cigarette, it comes from previous work in which I have took pictures of people on tube trains**, I liked the loneliness that exists on the tube and how you can have a very self contained quiet moment whilst on the tube. A very similar feeling can occur when you smoke by yourself, you start to look at every little thing around you and you exist in your own little bubble for 3 or 4 minutes before going back to the real world. I took that premise further by having the cigarette smoking and also addressed the start and end of the life of the cigarette with the music which backs it.

I used a DSLR camera, a tripod and a remote shutter release which i locked down so it took and image every second or so, theres moments when nothing happens and theres inconsistencies, but thats what i like about the video. What do you think?

*To the bottom, photos from my old movement project *
**To the side, photos from the tube**

Portraits

Inconsistently im interested in portrait photography, its an on/off affair at the moment, while I do enjoy doing it, it was more something to keep my occupied whilst I felt I found a niche. In the last few weeks I've been playing with stop motion filming, which I am going to upload on here in the next few days but I thought I would put some of these images up here to begin with.

Starting To Blog

I thought I would start a place to write down my thoughts, show my artwork, write about music. Just to share the things I love...